


A Home Ec Teacher and A Substitute Walk Into A Bar

by goatFanatic



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: M/M, Tourettes Syndrome, tourettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-20 23:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6029434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goatFanatic/pseuds/goatFanatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first Burc fic in existence.  Set in my teacher au, of course.  Warnings for mentions of alcoholism in later chapters</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Excuse me, can I sit here?”  
Hercules Mulligan looked up at the man in front of him. He was a rather tall, darker fellow, with curly black hair holding a brown paper lunch sack. He pulled on his tie and fiddled nervously with the lunch bag.  
Herc blushed when he realized that he was staring and moved his stuff to the floor. “Yeah, go ahead, sit.”  
The man nodded and sat in the chair across the table from Herc. He set down the bag and began unpacking his lunch. “I’m Burt, by the way, Burt Cosgrove.” He unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite.  
Herc nodded. “I’m Herc Mulligan. I’m the home ec teacher. You’re subbing for Tracy while she’s on maternity leave, right?”  
Burt smiled and nodded. “Yeah! I don’t know what to do with the Art Club kids, though.” He laughed a little. “They seem to know what they’re doing, at least.”  
Herc nodded slowly. “Yeah... I’m pretty sure district is over, and it’s just the finalists now, I guess.” Herc wasn’t entirely sure what that meant by that, but he heard Tracy say it a lot before she left.  
Fortunately, Burt didn’t know anything about art club either. That didn’t stop him from bullshitting to the same level that Hercules was. “Yeah, now it’s just the winners of the primaries, right?”  
They sat there awkwardly for a minute before Burt decided to break the silence. This guy was cute and he wasn’t about to let his chance to make a new friend slip away.  
“You’re the home ec teacher, right? What... what exactly do you do in there?” It was a lame question, but Burt was never really the best at conversation, especially not while he was sober.  
Herc beamed and set down his fork. “It’s great! I teach the kids how to cook and clean and stuff! My favorite is the sewing unit, it always makes the kids happy and I love to sew. I made this shirt, actually.” Herc gestured to the shirt he was wearing.  
Burt smiled and nodded. “You did a really good job on it! It looks store bought.” He said, hoping that it came out as a compliment. He was never really sure.  
Herc was still smiling. “Thanks! I though I did pretty well on it.” He took a bite of his macaroni and dropped the fork as his hand froze up.  
Burt couldn’t help but stare a bit. It was a bit odd, especially since Herc barely seemed to notice.  
Herc picked up on the stare. He was used to getting weird looks. But that didn’t mean the looks were less annoying, and explaining it was honestly getting old. He cleared his throat.  
Burt looked back up at his face, blushing at being caught staring.  
“It’s Tourettes,” Herc stated plainly, having had this discussion many times before.  
“Hm?” Burt wasn’t sure if he had heard him right. He had heard of Tourettes before, but he didn’t know much about it. Wasn’t that the one disease that made you shout swear words?  
“I have Tourettes Syndrome. That’s why I’m doing the thing with my hands, and the-” His head snapped to the side and he let out a loud ‘brrrah’. He blushed and cleared his throat again. “That”  
Burt nodded slowly. “Right.” He had some questions, but he decided to save them for later.  
Especially since the bell was about to ring and he needed to get his classroom unlocked for his fourth block class.  
The two of them looked up when it rang, and began to pack up their lunches.  
“I’ll see you after class,” Herc said, packing his pasta bowl into his bag.  
“Yeah!,” Burt smiled. He really liked Herc already.  
“I’ll meet you in the commons. Maybe we could go out for a few drinks after school?” Herc sounded hopeful.  
Burt nodded excitedly. “Yeah, totally!”  
Herc smiled. “Then it’s a date.”  
Burt didn’t have time to ponder the prasing before Herc walked off to his next class.


	2. Chapter 2

Burt was nervous.

Well, to be fair, he was always nervous, but at the moment he was even more nervous than usual.

He wasn’t sure what to expect from this ‘date’ with Herc. He wasn’t even sure if it was a date date.

“Hi.”

Burt jumped when he heard a voice from behind him.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He turned around to see Herc standing there, wearing a leather jacket over his clothes from earlier and carrying a leather messenger bag. Burt immediately relaxed upon seeing him.

“It’s fine, I’m fine.” He smiled up at Herc.

Herc smiled back. “Well, then, you ready to go?”

Burt stood, nodding his head excitedly.

“Let’s go.”

The two of them walked in a comfortable silence to Herc’s car.

Burt got in and buckled up. “So,” he leaned onto the armrest, “where are we going?”

“Busy Bars,” Herc buckled in and put the key into the ignition before noticing Burt’s confused look. “It’s what I call Throttle Down,” he explained, “because it was called Busy Bees back when it was a day care.”

“Oh,” Burt chuckled, “that’s clever.”

“Yeah,” Herc nodded as he pulled out of the parking spot. He turned and exited the parking lot, cringing at all of the construction. “You gotta be kidding,” he grumbled, pulling up at the back of a long line of cars.

Burt sighed. “When did they say they were gonna be done with all of this?”

“September,” he turned his gaze to Burt, “of last year.”

Burt rolled his eyes. They had be building this new extension to the middle school for much longer than the originally said they would, which was spring two years ago. “It better be a damn good STEM center when they’re finally done with it.”

Herc nodded in agreement before turning back to the foad. “Finally,” he said when it was his turn to go.

Luckily, the bar was only about a mile away, but still too far to walk from the high school, especially after the day each of them had.

They pulled into the parking lot and Herc got their spot. He took the key out of the ignition and unbuckled his seatbelt.

“Wailt,” Burt said as Herc was about to get out of the car. “I have a question before we get out of the car.”

Herc waited for him to ask before realizing that he was waiting for him to say something. “Shoot.”

The nervousness was back. Burt blushed and fiddled with his shirt. “Um,” his words seemed to catch in his throat but he needed to know. “Um, earlier, when you said that it was a date, did you mean that literally, or...” Burt was blushing hard, he could feel it. He was rather embarrassed. He always needed clarification on things, and he was used to it annoying people.

Herc was blushing as well. “Well, um, I did. But if you’re uncomfortable with that, that’s totally fine...”

“No!,” Burt let out a blush that he didn’t even know he was holding. “I mean, no, it’s fine. I just wanted to make sure.” He smiled.

Herc smiled right back. He cleared his throat and straightened his back. “Now that we’ve got that all settled, do you wanna go in?”

Burt nodded excitedly. “Yeah! I actually haven’t been in here, not since it was a day care.” He laughed. “I was a scout leader of my little cousin’s troop, until...” Burt frowned and shook his head, as if to banish the memory from his mind. “Let’s just go in.”

Admittedly, Herc was a bit curious, but he decided that it wasn’t the best first date conversation topic.

The two of them got out of the car and walked up to the entrance. They gave each other a glance before pushing open the door.


End file.
